Hospital officials say that the American doctor being monitored for possible Ebola was finally released from the facility after completing the 21-day monitoring period.
He requested for his privacy during the monitoring period, and left the facility in the morning of Jan. 12.
Ebola Free
The American doctor who was brought to Nebraska Medicine to be monitored for Ebola was finally released from the facility. The doctor was taken to the facility because of his exposure to the disease while he was providing medical care to patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo where there is an ongoing Ebola outbreak. He arrived at the facility on Dec. 29 and was taken to a secure area that was inaccessible to the public and other patients.
Despite not presenting any symptoms at the time, he was taken to a secure facility to be monitored for 21-days, as Ebola may incubate for three weeks before the patient presents any symptoms. Now that the 21 days are up, officials at Nebraska Medicine say that the doctor did not present any symptoms of Ebola during the entirety of the monitoring period, and therefore was determined to not have Ebola and was free to go home.
“We are very grateful to our very well-trained and experienced staff who worked closely with national and regional leadership on this effort,” said Jeffrey P. Gold, M.D., the Chancellor of UNMC and the University of Nebraska Omaha.
Nebraska Medicine
If the doctor had developed symptoms of Ebola, he would have been transferred to the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit where three Ebola patients were treated in 2014, and several others were monitored and cleared in 2015.
Nebraska Medicine is one of the few facilities in the country with a biocontainment unit. Since the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Africa, experts and professionals at Nebraska Medicine took on a leading role in training other health professionals across the United States and the world to deal with diseases such as Ebola.
The University of Nebraska Medical Center, the education and research partner of Nebraska Medicine, will soon be the home of the Global Center for Health Security, which will feature a six-bed biocontainment unit, as well as two independent quarantine units.
